Chapter 24: Weird Creepy Puppet Guy

We sped off on the trail; as we got closer, Naruto started to get angry again and pulled away. Lady Chiyo, confused, finally asked why he was so dead-set on saving Gaara, a former enemy from another village.

That's when Kakashi-sensei revealed that, as he was the Nine-Tails' Jinchuuriki and was one of the few people who could understand what Gaara went through and vice versa. That Naruto viewed Gaara as a comrade who shared his pain. Finally, he mentioned the quality we both thought was Naruto's best. Even without exchanging many words, he could establish a friendship with anyone.

This shocked Lady Chiyo so much that she revealed she was the one who sealed the One-Tail into Gaara. She seemed to feel guilty about it. However, she defended herself by saying that the Sand needed to acquire resources to protect itself, with alliances with other villages being formalities that could break suddenly. But the One-Tail only brought the village suffering.

But after seeing the Leaf, the same village she had avoided and didn't want the Sand to ally with, come to their rescue, she admitted she may have made many mistakes in her long life.

To be honest, her honesty and humility made me like her. I, too, had made mistakes in the past that I was ashamed of. And I was used to everyone around me, enemy and ally, never admitting when they were wrong. Constantly going on about "honour", "tradition", and "family." Like those buzzwords justified every outdated viewpoint they had or bad decision they made.

With newfound respect for the old Sand crone, she, Kakashi-sensei and I sped forward and caught up with Naruto.

...

We arrived at a pond with a large boulder blocking the entrance to a cave. Standing in front of it on the water were Team Guy: Rock Lee, Tenten, Neji and the Green Beast of the Leaf himself, Guy-sensei.

And boy, what a beast he was. I had been dragged into his "competitions" with Kakashi-sensei a few times. One of the said competitions was my first DP. The first of them to go soft was the loser. Guy-sensei won, by the way.

They all looked happy to see us. However, they were surprised to see Lady Chiyo with us. Neji gave me, in particular, a dirty look. I guessed he was still mad about the whole "Hinata Sexual Awakening."

"All right, Kakashi, our first order of business is this barrier. How do we get past it?" Guy-sensei asked as he pointed to the seal on the boulder.

"It's a five-seal barrier. These are established by placing five talismans in the nearby area. A single character, the one for 'forbidden', is inscribed on each." Kakashi-sensei explained, also pointing at the seal on the boulder. "That's the first. There should be four others nearby. Until we peel them off, we can't do anything about the barrier."

"Where are the others?" Naruto asked.

"Neji." That was all Kakashi-sensei said. Straight away, Neji activated his Byakugan. Almost instantly, he started calling out their locations.

"One is on a rock 500 metres to the northeast. Another is on a tree about 350 metres southeast. The third is on a cliff wall about 650 metres to the northwest, and the last is in the woods, about 500 metres southwest." Neji reported.

"Perfect, they are all in range of the wireless communication devices." Responded Guy-sensei as he pulled out short-range radios attached to, in my opinion, rather stylish and somewhat sexy chokers.

"Take these. Neji will use them to guide us to the talismans." He said, preparing one for each of us.

We all put them on; I had to resist doing a little pose. No one was in the mood for it.

"The frequency is 174. My team is faster, so we will go after the four hidden nearby. Stay put till we get in position."

Guy-sensei began preparing his team.

"Alright. We are counting on you, Guy." Kakashi-sensei said softly.

He and Guy-sensei had a weird relationship. Kakashi acted like Guy-sensei was an annoyance, but once in bed, Kakashi-sensei told me Guy-sensei was his last remaining friend and the person he trusted the most in the world. I sometimes wondered how he viewed me, not professionally but personally. His student? Friend? Lover? Side-bitch? I believed he did care for me, and he also fucked me, but I don't think he "loved" me. At least not the way Hinata loved Naruto or the way I used to love Sasuke. Or thought I did anyway.

"Team Guy! Let's go forth with the power of youth! Scatter!"

Guy-sensei's orders broke me out of my thoughts. The four of them—Guy-sensei, Neji, Lee, and Tenten—jumped off in different directions.

Then I got into position in front of the boulder with the fifth seal; it was my job to break it after Kakashi-sensei and Team Guy all pulled the other seals off simultaneously. I readied my strike; I didn't think I needed to open any Gates. Just channelling chakra to my shoulder, arm, and fist should have been enough to break a boulder of this size.

Soon, Team Guy sounded off on the radio, saying they had found their targets and were ready to pull off the seals.

"Okay! 3. 2. 1. Pull!"

I heard Guy-sensei shout over the radio, and then Kakashi-sensei pulled off the seal on the boulder.

"Sakura!"

And with that, I charged in.

"CHA!"

CRASH!

My fist connected with the stone, and the massive boulder shattered instantly, exploding into dust and gravel. In the few seconds it took for the rubble to fall away, we lined up in position: Kakashi-sensei and Naruto on the left, and I and Lady Chiyo on the right.

Kakashi-sensei gave us a hand signal to breach the cave, and we charged in.

My heart sank when we entered.

Inside were four figures. To the left was a large white bird creature. In the middle was a man with blond hair covering his left eye. To his right was a crouched figure wearing a mask. Both men wore the same black robes with red clouds that Itachi wore.

But it was none of those three that made my heart sink. It was the fourth figure that the blond man was sitting on.

It was Gaara, and even from that distance, I could tell he was dead.

"Now, which one of them is the Jinchuuriki? Hmmm?" The blond man asked aloud.

At this point, Naruto's face changed, his eyes went red, and the pupils became slits. His teeth grew into fangs, and whisker-like lines appeared on his cheeks.

With rage in his voice, he shouted, "You're fucking dead meat!"

"Guess that's him." Spoke the crouched masked man.

"Looks like..." Blondie affirmed.

Naruto kept staring at Gaara's body, screaming.

"Gaara! Why are you just lying there?! Get up! Are you deaf?!"

It was all I could do to hold back tears. Sure, we failed our mission, but I was far less close to Gaara. In fact, I still hated him a bit for what he did to Lee. But I couldn't bear to see Naruto so anguished. Oh, how I wished there were no enemies around so I could have tried to comfort him or at least let him give in to his emotions by screaming or crying, but we were about to go into combat.

"Naruto, stop. You know full well." Kakashi-sensei uttered coldly.

"Indeed. You should be able to tell that he's already dead. Hmmm?" The blond man taunted.

And with that, Naruto started to charge him. "Give him back! Give me Gaara! You fucking...!"

But Kakashi-sensei managed to jump in front of Naruto. "Calm down. Charge in without thinking, and you'll get us all killed."

That seemed to break Naruto out of his blind rage for now, but his face was still demonic. At that moment, I wondered if Naruto even knew his face changed when he got angry.

"I'll hold on to the body, Sasori, since it seems the other Jinchuuriki is gunning for it," Blondie said to the masked man; apparently, this was Sasori of the Red Sand, Lady Chiyo's grandson.

"It's supposed to be one each. You got the last one. Don't push your luck, Deidara." Sasori responded.

It seemed that Blondie's name was Deidara, and the two of them were arguing about who got to fight and capture Naruto. Then they started arguing about art, of all things, but honestly, I didn't give a fuck and stopped listening.

Naruto seemed to be of the same mind as me as he pulled out a scroll and summoned a giant shuriken, which he threw at Deidara.

Whish-Whish-Whish!

But from under Sasori's robe, a large metal tail-like weapon shot out and deflected the shuriken before it hit.

Clang!

Neither of them even glanced at it. They just kept arguing. Suddenly, the giant white bird ATE Gaara's body. That brought my focus back to what Deidara was saying.

"My art is the explosion itself. Compared to your grotesque puppet show, it's not even in the same fucking league."

Saying that, Deidara jumped onto the bird's back. "Later."

He rode the bird out of the cave.

"Get fucking back here!" Naruto shouted as he ran after him.

"Fuck! You two stay here and deal with that one. Naruto and I will go after the other one! Just don't do anything rash! Hold him off and wait for Team Guy," Kakashi-sensei ordered as he ran after Naruto.

"Understood!" I replied, not taking my eyes off Sasori. Lady Chiyo remained silent, also staring at him.

"Sakura, be brave! I'm here with you! Stay behind me and watch!" Lady Chiyo shouted, then pulled out two wires with kunai attached to them.

I won't lie; her talking to me like that pissed me off. I wondered if she overheard Kakashi-sensei and me last night and assumed I was just some girl he brought along to fuck when things were quiet.

She launched them all at Sasori, but he simply deflected them all with his 'tail.'

Clink! Clink!

While I was processing what I was seeing, Sasori started spewing some bullshit about making Lady Chiyo into a puppet for his collection. Saying shit like he would take out her entrails, exsanguinate her body and skin her skin. I wasn't sure if he was being genuine or just trying to freak us out.

"That's not his body! It's a puppet!" Said Lady Chiyo, horrified.

'Sasori' was on all fours, projectile weapons growing out of his arms, with a turtle-like shell on his back in the shape of a face with a long, segmented, spade-tipped bladed tail growing out of the mouth.

"The hag is right. What you see is just one piece of my collection. The two of you will bump it to three hundred once you're properly gutted and preserved. That is my art. My gift to the world."

"We ain't becoming one of your fucked-up sex dolls!"

I looked around for the chakra strings controlling the puppet before us. If I could spot them, I could track down his real body. Lady Chiyo must have spotted my furtive glances around the battlefield.

"His real body is inside that puppet."

I never took my eyes off Sasori, but I made sure to pay attention to Lady Chiyo.

"Puppet users aren't so good with combat since fussing with their puppet via chakra strings leaves them open to attack. To overcome this weakness, he created this puppet. It serves as his armour and his weapon. It's his favourite puppet. I'm familiar with it. It's called Hiruko."

So far, Sasori had yet to make a move. This was good for us as it gave Naruto and Kakashi time to deal with the other one and come back to back us up.

"So you know what it's capable of?"

"Sadly, no. He has modified it since I last saw it. The shell looks different; he must have increased its defences, and I'm unfamiliar with the weapons in its arms."

"So what do we do?"

"First, we must break Hiruko and drag Sasori's real body out. I don't have the strength to break through its shell, but you do. You go on the attack, and I'll defend you from his counterattacks as best I can. Be careful of the poison. One scratch could be fatal."

"Are we all ready? I hate waiting; you must know that."

"Don't worry, we'll waste no time... in killing you!"

I rolled my eyes. Firstly, he sat back and let us talk, and then Lady Chiyo delivered corny lines. But the battle commenced. We both charged at Sasori as his 'mouth' opened wide, and he shot out a stream of kunai.

Thwack! Thwack!

I had opened the first gate and could easily dodge the projectiles. I even threw in a few stylish handstands and spins. It totally served a practical purpose. I was working on a new genjutsu that utilised sexy dance moves while emitting chakra from my skin. It required most of my skin to be displayed and my opponent to be at least a little attracted to me. So I doubted it would work on a turbo virgin obsessed with puppets like Sasori, but I was trying to get into the habit of doing it all the time.

Sasori then launched the cylinder weapon in his left arm. It exploded and fired a hail of what I assumed to be poisoned needles.

Whoosh!

Again, Lady Chiyo and I dodged them, but I made sure to do it with style. My transformed clothes were currently a plain red jacket, but underneath, I was ready.

"Time to give you a show, creepy!"

The spade tail blade was coming directly at my face, but I managed to jump into the air just in time. When I reached the apex of my jump, I released the transformation on my outer layer.

Poof!

My red jacket vanished in a cloud of white smoke. I landed in a crouch, fully revealing my combat attire. I was wearing a black, see-through fishnet shirt that clung tight to my skin, leaving nothing to the imagination. Underneath, pink X-shaped pasties barely covered my nipples, which were hard from the adrenaline. My pink mini-skirt was dangerously short, riding up my thighs, and the straps of my black thong were visible on my hips. My black high heels dug into the cave floor.

I gave my hips a sultry shake, flashing my pasties at the puppet.

"Like what you see?"

I pushed off the ground, my heels clicking sharply, and brought down a full-force, chakra-enhanced axe kick directly onto Hiruko's shell.

"CHA!"

CRACK! BOOM!

The shell shattered under my heel, pieces of wood and metal flying everywhere. I hopped back, my fishnet shirt stretching over my chest with the movement. My clothing provided no protection anyway; honestly, I couldn't resist showing off.

I saw a cloaked person jump out of the wreckage of the shell. It then began to speak in a more high-pitched and younger voice than Sasori's Hiruko used.

"I should have expected no less from my old Granny. You slipped chakra strings onto my tail when I used it to block those kunai. And used them to stop my tail at the last moment when she went in for the kill. I only noticed when I felt the tail hitch."

"Very good. I used the tiniest amount of chakra I could get away with to keep the strings invisible. But you saw through it in the end."

"Of course, remember who taught me to play with puppets. Who drilled the talent into me? It was you."

"Indeed, but playtime is over."

Sasori pulled the hood of his cloak down, revealing a very youthful, androgynous face. His hair was bright red.

"Still think this'll be easy, Granny Chiyo?"

It didn't make sense. He should have been in his thirties, but the man in front of us looked my age, maybe younger. Lady Chiyo looked just as surprised. Sasori then pulled out a scroll from up the sleeve of his long, black cloak with red clouds.

"Let me show you my favourite. You know, this one was hard to finish." He said as he held up the scroll with one hand and let it unroll.

"But that is what makes me so fond of him." He added before white smoke engulfed the space in front of him.

As the smoke cleared, we saw a puppet with black hair wearing a long black cloak.

"That's the Third Kazekage..." Lady Chiyo said in a shaky voice.